Swimsuit controversy reminiscent of past

Sept. 12, 2000

KALAMAZOO -- Once Olympic swimmers fought to wear less, now
they are fighting to wear more. According to Dr. Linda J. Borish,
WMU associate professor of history and women's studies, the controversy
over the new bodysuit being used by some Olympic swimming competitors,
including Americans, is reminiscent of another battle over bathing
suits fought more than 80 years ago by the first female Olympic
swimmers.

"Annette Kellerman of Australia led bathing suit reform
in the early 1900s," says Borish. "She wanted a suit
that would be more practical and enhance swimming rather than
hinder it. The suits they were wearing then were made out of
heavy wool, covered most of their bodies and required that they
wear stockings so that none of their legs were showing. To wear
something less was considered immodest."

Kellerman's efforts to prove that less was more ended up getting
her arrested on a beach in Boston in 1906 for showing too much
of her arms and legs while wearing a one-piece bathing suit.
American women's swimming pioneer Charlotte Epstein also took
up the fight. She argued that for members of one of the first
U.S. organizations for female swimmers, the National Women's
Lifesaving League, it wasn't safe to try to save drowning swimmers
while wearing stockings. Epstein noted that for these lifesavers
and those who race in contests of speed "water soaked stockings
tire the legs."

Today's women swimmers have Kellerman and Epstein to thank
for the reform that has brought more aerodynamic apparel to the
sport, which this year includes new bodysuits that, ironically,
cover a large portion of the swimmer's body.

"Interestingly the new suits are about the same thing,"
says Borish, "enhancing the swimmers' performances. Except
this time the controversy is not about immodesty, but about access.
Do all athletes have access to this supposedly performance-enhancing
material?"